Beauty And Beauty In Ann Radcliffe's The Italian

In addition to having a well defined chin, the Prioress held wide-set blue eyes, slender-arched brows and heart-shaped red lips that seemed to smiled from under the boldness of a button nose. What was once a crone had regressed in age. Therefore, mouth still open, Audette creased her brow instinctively as felt she was no longer the prettiest thing in the forest. Focusing her

Imagery plays an imperative role in creating emotional duality throughout the text. The reader is presented to the narrator being called upon by the Queen. When the narrator looks behind, “[the Queen’s] expression, at first quizzical, now turned joyous, showing brilliant white and perfect teeth” (lines 3-4). Verghese’s use of imagery through this line magnificently illustrates the Queen’s enthusiasm to see who she has called upon. At first, the quizzical countenance of the Queen’s face arouses misperception in the reader, questioning why she is puzzled to lay eyes on the narrator, but soon resolved when her expression turns joyous. The joyous mood created through this line is epitomized through the dazzling imagery as she shows her brilliant white and perfect teeth through her smile. Soon after, the narrator ascertains the Queen as Tsige, as he “towered over her…tongue-tied” (line 9). The use of the idiom, tongue-tied illustrates to the reader

Her rosy cheeks were now of Death's own livid hue. Her smile, which drew the hearts of lovers from their bosoms, had become a hideous thing. A grinning mask looked on the world, and to the world her gaping mouth and protruding tongue meant a horror before which the world stood terrified, dumb"(109).

Accordingly, Fantomina acts repetitively throughout the novel to gain the attention of Beauplaisir as a result of an identity crisis. This is relevant because she has a process of developing a character and subsequently seducing Beauplaisir, but she never realizes that she succumbs to each new role. Succumbing to the role almost as a method actor, she hides her true identity by burying beneath each character she embodies. Method acting tends to take a toll internally on a person and Fantomina is clearly affected, “she found herself involv’d in a Difficulty, which before never enter’d into her head”, she feels pulled into the role here and it reflects in her thoughts showing internal strife on how she initially uses her first character to interact with suitors (Haywood, 43). Therefore, Fantomina painstakingly undergoes a full transformation to become each identity to the fullest extent she can while discarding the previous layer of identity until her final true identity is revealed. Slowly, she peels away false attributes in the characters she acquires. As previously stated, the method of her embodiment of a role causes her to subconsciously adapt this persona as her own disguise. This method is how she can successfully adopt new alternative identities.

The man, too, exhibits naïveté when he mentions, “Her beauty made me glad.” His observation of the girl is very innocent in that he brings attention to things as he notices them, much like a child. “Her hair was thick with many a curl/ That clustered round her head./ She had a rustic, woodland air,/ And she was wildly clad:/ Her eyes were fair, and very fair;” he says. With the repeating of, “Very fair,” it is as if he took sudden a closer look

Deception, as well as their relationship, is crucial to the overall plot. The character of Lady Anne has crucial dramatic functions within the play because her character supports Richard’s growing reputation of manipulating and morally wrong motives. When she is seduced by Richard, it shows his success at manipulation, which eventually does fail in the later acts of the play.

The purpose of the book Women of the Renaissance by Margaret King is to explain the various roles of that women occupied during the renaissance. She mainly focusses on women of western Europe between 1350 and 1650. In the chapter titled “Daughters of Eve: Women in the Family” King writes about the positions of women in the family. In the part of the chapter that we were assigned, she depicts the role of mother. She explains the importance having children, the differences between healthy and lower class mothers, and the relationship between these mothers and their children. During the renaissance, motherhood was an extremely important job, and many women were defined by it.

  In eighteenth century novels, a common means of discussing the role of women in society is through the characterization of two good sisters. The heroine of such a novel is a pure, kind young woman who also has a streak of spunkiness. Her sister may be more good and kind, but she is more submissive and reserved. I would like to look at these sisters (and their mothers) in Ann Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance , and The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole.

In Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, Lily Bart is characterized by her artistic nature. She is not only an artist, but a work of art. Lily uses her artistic temperament to enhance her beauty and attract potential suitors. Unfortunately, this use of Lily’s artistic nature is never wholly satisfying.

Gothics didn’t just settle their depictions of women on the presence of power, but, they also described the roles that they should play, and how the had to play them. In early gothics, and some new versions of the form, the role that women take is that of the “other”, or in essence the marginalized.This common gothic trope of women being othered, leads to them taking on the role of the victims. This is no different in A Sicilian Romance, as most of the women, barring one character, have been victimized by male circumstance, in some way. While Julia was the main victim, being chased down by her father, and the duke, to whom she was to be married, her sister was also a victim, as she was imprisoned by their father, because she was accused of aiding in Julia’s escape. Even their mentor was a victim in many ways, not only having her brother killed by her husband, then losing him, and having his brother contest her right to the estate, but she was also othered by the marquis new wife, maria, after seeing maria cheat on the marquis, and forced out of her new home as well. But being a victim isn’t the only way gender roles come into play in gothics. Gender norms are also a big part of the story structure of gothics, and so is subverting them. The standard for how women behave, look, and carry themselves is a major part of their depiction. In A Sicilian Romance, women are shown as needing to be proper, pure, and kind. The only one that subvert this, is maria, who is one of the

“For she was a woman of surpassing beauty, and at that time, when she was in the prime of her youth, she was most striking. She also possessed

Austen now introduces the reader into the lifestyle of Catherine Morland, and how her years have been spent quite different than the made assumption of a heroine. Austen decides on word choice to describe Catherine and her parents, to the complete opposite of what the average hero would be described as. Austen selects his word choice as, “for they [the Morland's] were very plain”, “She had a thin awkward figure, sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair”. The way Austen chooses to describe Catherine is not the common strong, muscular, genius, life changing, hero you hear about on an everyday basis. The image given by Austen on Catherine's appearance is carefully chosen to remain in

Austen has set out to save the rising art form of the novel. In this address to the reader she glorifies what a novel should be: the unrestrained expression of words conveying the wide range of raw human emotion. This veneration of the novel is necessary to the development of Catherine's fiction-loving character as it justifies the narrator's right to remain fond of this flawed heroine.

Richardson explains how this confusion was relevant of the historical and cultural context of Austen’s era. Both the Gothic and the sentimental genres were regularly criticised for influencing readers to project fictional elements into real life. As Richardson explains, the Gothic was singled out for condemnation through its ‘thematics of female constraint and persecution and its fictive indulgence in forbidden lusts and passions, and the sentimental novel, with its ideal or ‘romantic’ picture of life and its over-valuation of erotic love as the key to female happiness (Richardson 2005:399). This projection is reflected in Northanger Abbey when Catherine is invited to Northanger Abbey: ‘Northanger Abbey! These were thrilling words, and wound up Catherine’s feelings to the highest point of ecstasy’ ( Austen pp.99-100). The use of ‘ecstasy’ reflects Catherine’s excessive personality and self-transcendence. Catherine’s gothic idealist vision of the abbey and her pursuit of pleasure, signifies her lack of self-directedness in which she dismisses her own control of life and puts herself in the position of the gothic heroine as portrayed in her reading of Radcliffe’s ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’. The prominent role of ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ in Northanger Abbey is highly symbolic in representing Austen’s concerns of the excesses of sensibility and the gothic and how they can distort the reader’s interpretation of life. Barker-Benfield (p.111) highlights how ‘Radcliffe’s Mysteries typically hinted at its apparent dangers but continued to convey its tenets. And no one could prevent readers from identifying with figures the author intended as warnings against sensibility’s ‘excesses’.

The physical appearance of Elizabeth Bennet is quite often referred to as pretty by many people. The first mentioning of her beauty is by Mr. Bingley , but she is